Behind the Curtain: Why “2.9% Unemployment” Feels Like Fiction
The headlines say the job market is fine. The unemployment rate sits around 4.3%. For people 45–54 and 55–64, it's reported at just 2.9%, which sounds almost unbelievable.
It is unbelievable if you've been sending resumes into the void, piecing together part-time work, or "retired" before you ever chose it.
Here's what the headline leaves out.
The Blind Spot in the Numbers
The unemployment rate comes from a survey of roughly 60,000 people conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). If you're working part-time but want full-time, you're counted as employed. If you stopped looking for more than four weeks, you're not "unemployed" or "employed,” you're "not in the labor force" at all. You disappear.
Since the pandemic, survey response rates have dropped dramatically:
The Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey response fell from roughly 60% to 45% since 2020
The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) fell from 70% pre-pandemic to 30% in 2023
Over a longer arc, the Bureau's resources haven't kept pace. BLS funding is down roughly 13% in inflation-adjusted dollars over the past 25 years while the economy more than doubled. Fewer resources, lower responses, bigger blind spots.
Example: In July 2025, the BLS adjusted downward over 900,000 jobs lost between April 2024 and March 2025.
The point isn't to dunk on the statisticians. You can only be as good as the quality of your data. This is about scope: data ≠ reality. And the gap between the two is where a lot of midlife, mid-career workers live.
What "2.9%" Can't See
Underemployment is real slack. The broader underemployment rate sits around 8.8%. Among older workers, part-time work is more common: 14.2% for those 55+ versus 11.1% for ages 25–54 (AARP).
Long-term unemployment hits harder later. Roughly 26.5% of jobseekers 55+ are out six months or longer. In November 2023, over 35% of long-term discouraged workers were over 55.
Involuntary separation is common. A major study found Americans in their 50s holding long-tenure full-time roles are 56% likely to be pushed out through layoffs, deteriorating conditions, "unexpected" retirement. Only one in ten regain prior earnings.
Read that slowly. For a lot of experienced people, the labor market didn't become fairer with time; it became narrower. Not because they offer less value, but because the systems counting and hiring are built to miss it.
The Last Acceptable Bias
We’ve cleaned up a lot of our language around bias in business. We’ve built more equitable hiring processes in some places. But one prejudice still hides in plain sight.
You're counted as "employed" while you're overqualified and underutilized. You stop applying for a month to regroup and you're not counted at all. You're "retired" on paper when what happened was involuntary exit. You're told the market is strong while your inbox is silent.
This isn't a story about laziness or obsolescence. It's a story about measurement, incentives, and a bias we still don't confront directly.
Call it what it is: ageism. Often disguised as "culture fit," "moldability," or "cost." It lives inside keyword screens and "recent title" filters. It lives in the reflex to hire "more junior." The filters aren't neutral. Most applicant-tracking systems reward recency, exact-title matches, short time-in-role, and tight salary bands. Signals that function as age proxies. At scale, that means many experienced candidates are removed before a human ever reads their resumes.
Too young to retire. Too old to rehire.
It lives in the comfort of pretending a 2.9% headline means the problem is you. And when I hear that, I say it's just a bunch of BLS.
Naming it doesn't make you a victim. It keeps you from gaslighting yourself.
What This Feels Like
Two truths can live together:
The headline economy can look healthy.
Your experience can be brutal and explainable once you look behind the curtain.
You're not imagining it. The gap between what the data says and what you're living through is real, measurable, and documented. The system isn't built to count you, and the hiring filters aren't designed to see you.
So what happens next isn't about waiting for the system to fix itself. It's about building your own path when the official one is blocked.
By Jamie Venable for If Happens™